Tutankhamun's inner coffin, made of gold, in Cairo, Egyptian Museum, JE 60671. H. Burton photo. 719C(1). Copyright Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
The Egyptian Pharaoh (King) was, in theory, the owner of all the riches of Egypt, and this makes the estimate of his wealth rather difficult. You will get some idea of how much wealth was involved from the fact that the innermost of Tutankhamun's coffins, made of sheet gold, weighed 110.4 kg. So just the metal used to make one of his coffins would be worth some one and a half million dollars these days (I hope I have calculated it correctly, I am not quite used to so much money). This does not take into acount the incalculable artistic and historic value of the object and so we can safely say that if such a coffin was offered for sale these days, no museum in the world would be able to afford buying it.
© Jaromir Malek 2001
Tutankhamun's inner coffin, made of gold, in Cairo,
Egyptian Museum, JE 60671. H. Burton photo. 719C(1). Copyright
Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.